Methods to solidify cremation remains

This application is a National Stage of International Patent Application No. PCT/US2020/029645 filed Apr. 23, 2020 and published as WO 2020/223113 A1, which application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 62/905,146 filed Sep. 24, 2019, and U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 62/839,630 filed Apr. 27, 2019, the entire contents of which applications is incorporated herein by this reference.

This application relates, in general, to methods of solidifying cremation remains.

Cremation is common around the world and dates back centuries. Some choose cremation over burial or entombment for convenience or environmental reasons as it can be more practical to handle ashes instead of a body. Some choose cremation for cultural, religious or spiritual reasons. And some are simply more comfortable with an “ashes to ashes, dust-to-dust” approach as opposed to the thought of “decay”. Regardless of the reasons, TIME magazine reported in 2016 that cremation is outpacing traditional burial in the U.S.

Cremation remains may be scattered at the request of the deceased at a location of their choosing. Or they may be buried or entombed, albeit in a smaller plot or chamber than a traditional burial. Otherwise, cremation remains are typically stored in closed containers such as a cremation urn or box. And in some instances, cremation remains may be combined with various additives to form various keepsakes or memorials. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,382,111 describes how cremation residues may be combined with various additives to form decorative objects.

Unfortunately, these options render, or may render, cremation remains wholly or partially irretrievable. For example, cremation remains that are scattered, buried or entombed are gone, that is, they are entirely lost or essentially inaccessible. If cremation urns or boxes are damaged, a portion of the cremation remains may be lost or undesirably mixed with other substances due to spillage. And it is likely impossible to again isolate cremation remains once they are mixed with additives.

It would therefore be useful to have methods of solidifying cremation remains that overcome the above and other disadvantages of known methods.

One aspect of the present invention is directed to a method to solidify cremation remains including: milling the cremation remains to a reduced particle size; adding water to the cremation remains to produce a claylike mass; shaping the claylike mass into wet ware having a desired shape; drying the wet ware to greenware that is sufficiently dry for firing; and firing the greenware in a kiln until solidified to one or more cremains solids consisting of the cremation remains.

The milling and adding may be accomplished by adding water to the cremation remains to form a slurry, milling the slurry to reduce particle size of the cremation remains suspended in the slurry, and drying the slurry to the claylike mass. The slurry may consist of approximately a 1:1 ratio of cremation remains to water. The milling and adding may be accomplished by milling the cremation remains while dry to reduce particle size of the cremation remains, and then adding water to the milled cremation remains to form the claylike mass.

The shaping may be accomplished by rolling or extruding the claylike mass into an elongated form, positioning the elongated form across a shaping apparatus and forming portions of the claylike mass into a plurality of objects, wherein the wet ware includes the plurality of objects. The shaping apparatus may be a ball-shaping apparatus having a pair of members with complementary groove pairs that pinch portions of the claylike mass into the groove pairs to form the plurality of objects within the groove pairs. The pair of members may be upper and lower plates, and the groove pairs are complementary and opposing parallel grooves on each of the upper and lower plates, and the shaping may be accomplished by positioning the elongated form across the parallel grooves, pressing the plates together to pinch the portions of the claylike mass into corresponding ones of the parallel grooves, and sliding the plates along one another in the direction of the parallel grooves to form the plurality of objects in corresponding ones of the parallel grooves. The pair of members may be parallel rollers, and the groove pairs are complementary and opposing circumferential grooves on each of the rollers, and the shaping may be accomplished by positioning the elongated form across between and on the rollers, whereby the rollers pinch the portions of the claylike mass into corresponding ones of the groove pairs to form the plurality of objects in corresponding ones of the groove pairs.

The shaping may be further accomplished by compressing at least one of the plurality of objects to provide the at least one of the plurality of objects with an organic shape. The drying may be accomplished by placing the wet ware on a drying table or in a drying box.

The firing may be accomplished by firing the greenware in the kiln until sintered with a vitrified surface. The firing may be accomplished by firing the kiln by ramping up the temperature about 200°/hour to a maximum temperature of about 2350° F., and holding the maximum temperature for about 45-60 minutes. The firing may be accomplished by firing in the kiln to a maximum temperature of about 2500° F. to 2700° F. The firing may be accomplished by holding a maximum temperature until the greenware softens to an organic shape.

The greenware may include a plurality of objects placed on one or more shelves within the kiln with each object spaced from adjacent objects. The greenware may include a plurality of objects, and wherein the firing may be accomplished by placing the plurality of objects in a crucible and firing together in the kiln.

The method may further may calcining the cremation remains to remove impurities and carbon from the cremation remains.

Another aspect of the present invention is directed to a method to solidify cremation remains including: milling the cremation remains to a reduced particle size; adding water to the cremation remains to produce a claylike mass; shaping the claylike mass into wet ware by dividing the claylike mass into a plurality of objects, wherein the wet ware comprises the plurality of objects; drying the wet ware into greenware that is sufficiently dry for firing; and firing the greenware in a kiln until solidified to a plurality of cremains solids.

The shaping may be accomplished by rolling or extruding the claylike mass into an elongated form, positioning the elongated form across a shaping apparatus and forming portions of the claylike mass into the plurality of objects.

The milling and adding may be accomplished by adding water to the cremation remains to form a slurry, milling the slurry to reduce particle size of the cremation remains suspended in the slurry, and drying the slurry to the claylike solid. The milling and adding may be accomplished by milling the cremation remains while dry to reduce particle size of the cremation remains, and then adding water to the milled cremation remains to form the claylike solid.

The shaping apparatus may be a ball-shaping apparatus having a pair of members with complementary groove pairs that pinch portions of the claylike mass into the groove pairs to form the plurality of objects within the groove pairs. The pair of members may be upper and lower plates, and the groove pairs are complementary and opposing parallel grooves on each of the upper and lower plates, and the shaping may be accomplished by positioning the elongated form across the parallel grooves, pressing the plates together to pinch the portions of the claylike mass into corresponding ones of the parallel grooves, and sliding the plates along one another in the direction of the parallel grooves to form the plurality of objects in corresponding ones of the parallel grooves. The pair of members may be parallel rollers, and the groove pairs are complementary and opposing circumferential grooves on each of the rollers, and the shaping may be accomplished by positioning the elongated form across between and on the rollers, whereby the rollers pinch the portions of the claylike mass into corresponding ones of the groove pairs to form the plurality of objects in corresponding ones of the groove pairs.

The shaping may be further accomplished by compressing at least one of the plurality of objects to provide the at least one of the plurality of objects with an organic shape.

The firing may be accomplished by firing the greenware in the kiln until sintered with a vitrified surface. The plurality of objects may be placed on one or more shelves within the kiln with each object spaced from adjacent objects. The firing may be accomplished by placing the plurality of objects in a crucible and firing together in the kiln.

The plurality of cremains solids may consist of the cremation remains.

The milling and adding may be further accomplished by adding glass to the cremation remains, and wherein the plurality of cremains solids consist of the cremation remains and glass.

A further aspect of the present invention is directed to a method to solidify cremation remains including: milling the cremation remains to a reduced particle size; shaping the milled cremation remains into a desired shape; and firing the shaped cremation remains in an oven until solidified to one or more cremains solids consisting of the cremation remains.

The firing may be accomplished by firing the shaped cremation remains in the kiln until sintered. The firing may be accomplished by firing the kiln by ramping up the temperature about 200°/hour to a maximum temperature of about 2350° F., and holding the maximum temperature for about 45-60 minutes. The firing may be accomplished by firing in the kiln to a maximum temperature of about 2500° F. to 2700° F.

A product may be produced according to any of the above methods.

The methods and apparatuses of the present invention have other features and advantages which will be apparent from or are set forth in more detail in the accompanying drawings, which are incorporated herein, and the following Detailed Description, which together serve to explain certain principles of the present invention.

Reference will now be made in detail to various embodiments of the present invention(s), examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings and described below. While the invention(s) will be described in conjunction with exemplary embodiments, it will be understood that the present description is not intended to limit the invention(s) to those exemplary embodiments. On the contrary, the invention(s) is/are intended to cover not only the exemplary embodiments, but also various alternatives, modifications, equivalents and other embodiments, which may be included within the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims.

Turning now to the drawings, wherein like components are designated by like reference numerals throughout the various figures, an exemplary method to solidify cremation remains in accordance with various aspects of the present invention is illustrated in. An expanded exemplary method is shown in, and an exemplary systemthat may be used in practicing the exemplary methods discussed herein is shown in.

The method generally includes the steps of milling the cremation remains to a reduced particle size, adding water to the cremation remains to produce a mixture, shaping the mixture into wet ware having a desired shape, drying the wet ware into greenware that is sufficiently dry for firing, and firing the greenware in a kiln until solidified to one or more cremains solids. In the case of forming a collection of cremains solids, the shaping step may further include the step of shaping the mixture into wet ware by forming a claylike mass into an elongated form, positioning the elongated form across a shaping apparatus and forming portions of the claylike mass into a plurality of wet ware objects. Alternatively, the shaping step may include shaping the mixture into wet ware by forming a slip, and pouring the slip into a slip mold to harden into a plurality of wet ware objects. For the purposes of the present application, “cremation remains” and “cremains” may be interchangeably used.

In various embodiments, the method begins with a solidified-cremains provider receiving cremation remains from a client. For example, a collection kit may be provided to a client to collect the cremains of a deceased family member and/or loved one. The client may be a funeral home or mortuary, or the client may be the survivor(s) of the deceased. The collection kit may include a container for the cremains and a return mailer for delivering to the cremains to the provider. The cremains may be delivered by any suitable means including hand delivery, USPS, UPS, and the like.

Once received by the provider, the cremains may be sorted accordingly and prepared for solidification. For example, the cremains may be placed in individual containers where they are safeguarded accordingly. The cremains may be weighed, recorded and otherwise documented as necessary to ensure process and quality control.

The cremains may be calcined to remove further impurities and/or carbon. While it is not essential to calcine the cremains, in many cases removing impurities and/or carbon to a greater extent generally provides for solidified remains of a more consistent and better quality.

In various embodiments, a kiln may be used to calcine the received cremains. For example, the received cremains may be put in a crucible or other suitable vessel, placed in a kiln, and then fired in the kiln with to a sufficiently high temperature and sufficient amount of heatwork to burn off impurities and/or carbon. For example, the kiln may be fired to temperatures greater than approximately 1800° F., more preferably greater than 1900° F., and most preferably greater than 2000° F. Alternatively, the kiln may be fired under appropriate heatwork protocols sufficient to burn off impurities and/or carbon. Pyrometric cones are well known to bend in a repeatable manner to measure temperature uniformity and heating protocols. And “cones” are widely understood to indicate specific temperature protocols specifying temperature uniformity and/or sufficient heatwork within a kiln, with or without the use of pyrometric cones. In accordance with various aspects of the present invention, a kiln may be fired to “cone 04”, or more preferably fired to “cone 1” to calcine the received remains.

For reference, cone 04 and other applicable cone temperatures and heating rates are provided in the table below.

One will appreciate that other temperature ranges and/or other heatwork protocols may be utilized to calcine the remains in accordance with the present invention. For example, one will appreciate that a kiln may even be fired to “cone 10” or higher to calcine the remains.

In accordance with various aspects of the present invention, the cremation remains may be milled to a reduced particle size. Milling not only provides a finer particle size but ensures greater uniformity in particle size, which in turn facilitates processing, provides a more uniform material and, ultimately, provides an esthetically-pleasing cremains solid. Milling may be accomplished with ball mills, attrition mills, grinding mills, and/or other suitable means for crushing and/or grinding the cremains to a reduced particle size. In various embodiments, the cremation remains are sufficiently reduced in particle size when they can pass through 180-mesh sieve, more preferably through a 200-mesh sieve, and most preferably through a 220-mesh sieve. In various embodiments, the cremation remains may be milled much finer, for example, to approximately 20-30 microns, in which case, the remains are sufficiently reduced in particle size when they can pass through a 450-mesh sieve, more preferably a 500-mesh sieve, and most preferably through a 600-mesh sieve.

In various embodiments, the cremation remains may be milled using a ball mill. As shown in, a ball milltypically includes a rotating barrelpartially filled with ballsthat, through rotation of the barrel, rise and fall to reduce particle size of the cremains through impact and attrition.

For milling, the cremains may be mixed with an appropriate amount of water to form a paste or slurry, and then placed in the ball mill to be milled in an otherwise conventional manner. It has been shown that a 1:1 ratio of cremains to water is particularly well suited for milling cremains in a ball mill, however, one will appreciate that other ratios might be utilized. One will further appreciate that the cremains and the water may be added to the ball mill separately. In such cases, the appropriate amount of water may be calculated based upon the weight of the remains, which weight may be determined when the remains are first received by the provider, or following calcining if the remains are calcined.

Milling the cremains with a ball mill typically takes between 24 to 48 hours. Preferably, the milling process is periodically monitored because the actual amount of time to adequately reduce particle size will vary depending upon the amount of remains. For example, the cremains of a 200-pound adult may take up to 48 hours, whereas the remains of a smaller adult, teen, child or pet may take less time. Once the cremains are sufficiently milled, the balls are removed from the ball mill, and the milled slurry may be transferred to a plaster trough or other suitable vessel, in which the slurry may be dried to a claylike mass that has sufficient plasticity allowing it to be manipulated while maintaining its shape without cracking or sagging, which thus facilitates subsequent shaping. This drying process may take about 6 to 48 hours depending upon the volume of the slurry as well as ambient temperature and humidity. Blowers, fans, and/or other convective means may be utilized to speed the drying process.

In other embodiments, the cremation remains may be milled using an attrition mill. Attrition milling is generally faster than ball milling, and attrition milling generally does not require the addition of water prior to milling.

An exemplary attrition millis shown inand includes an input feedwhich directs the to-be-milled cremains into a milling chamberbetween a stationary grinding diskand a rotating grinding disk. Once the cremains are reduced to a sufficiently small particle size, the reduced-size cremains may exit through the gap between the stationary and rotating disks through the dischargeinto a suitable vessel. One will appreciate that various types of attrition mills may be used such as single-wheeled disk mills (), double-wheeled disk mills, vibrating disk mills, vertically-disposed rotor mills, Buhr mills, and other suitable means to reduce particle size.

Attrition mills often do not require the milled particles be mixed with water or suspended in a fluid. When the cremains are milled “dry”, the reduced-size cremains particles may be subsequently mixed with water in order to provide a claylike mass, or to provide a slurry that can be dried to a claylike mass. In either case, having the cremains in a claylike mass facilitates subsequent shaping.

In still further embodiments, the cremation remains may be milled using a grinding mill, such as the SWECO Vibro-energy Grinding Mills provided by SWECO of Florence, Ky. Similar to the attrition mills described above, grinding mills are generally faster than ball mills, and grind milling generally does not require the addition of water prior to milling.

An exemplary vibratory grinding millis shown inand includes one or more containersthat are clamped down to a vibratory platform, which platform is vibrationally supported on springsand a vibrator base. Each container may be filled with dry cremation remainsand grinding media. The vibrator base may be then activated to drive the platform and the container(s) mounted thereon whereby the grinding media reduces the particle size of the cremation remains by impact and attrition forces generated by the grinding media within the container(s) in an otherwise conventional manner. One will appreciate that such a grinding mill may also be capable of milling cremation remains suspended in a slurry. Although a multi-container grinding mill is illustrated, one will appreciate that a single annular-chamber grinding mill may also be utilized.

In various embodiments, the cremains may be mixed with water and partially dried to a claylike mass having a claylike consistency and plasticity, the cremains may be processed into one or more pieces of pre-kiln wet ware having the desired shapes of the ultimate products. In other embodiments, the cremains may be mixed with water to form a slip that may be slip molded to form one or more pieces of pre-kiln wet ware substantially having the desired shapes of the ultimate products. For the purposes of the present invention, “wet ware” not only refers to a claylike mass having a claylike consistency and plasticity that may be readily shaped, but may also refer to a “leather-hard” mass that has been partially dried to the point where substantially all shrinkage has occurred, but where the mass may still be shaped to some degree. Thus, “wet ware” would generally encompass both “wet” and “leather-hard” ceramic objects but not “greenware” ceramic objects.

In various embodiments, the claylike mass may be shaped into a single piece of wet ware that will ultimately become a single large cremains solid in the form of a larger memorial object, or the claylike mass may be processed into a plurality of smaller pieces of wet ware that will ultimately become a collection of cremation solids, such as that shown in.

Preferably the wet ware is of organic shapes, that is, irregular or asymmetrical and curvy in appearance and tending to appear of the natural world. One will appreciate that, if desired, the claylike mass may be formed into various geometric shapes including spheres, pyramids, cubes and other regular solids (e.g., tetrahedrons, hexahedrons, octahedrons, etc.), as well as other three-dimensional forms. The wet ware shapes may be formed by hand, using molds in an otherwise conventional manner, or using various shaping devices as described below.

With reference to, the claylike mass may be shaped by rolling or extruding the claylike mass into an elongated form, positioned across an exemplary shaping apparatus(), pinched and rolled within the shaping apparatus () to form the claylike mass into a number of smaller objects(). As shown in, shaping apparatusmay be a ball-shaping apparatus including a pair of membershaving complementary grooves in which portions of the elongated form are pinched into correspondingly aligned groove pairs to form smaller objects within each of the groove pairs.

In the illustrated embodiment, the pair of membersare upper and lower plates, and the groove pairs are complementary and opposing parallel grooves on each of the upper and lower plates. Shaping is accomplished by positioning elongated formacross the parallel grooves (), pressing the plates together to pinch the portions of the claylike mass into corresponding ones of the parallel grooves (), and sliding the plates along one another in the direction of the parallel grooves () to form smaller objectsin corresponding ones of the parallel grooves ().

In other embodiments, and with reference to, elongated formmay be positioned across another exemplary shaping apparatusin order to form a number of smaller objects (). As shown in, the shaping apparatus may be a ball-shaping apparatus having a pair of rollerswith complementary grooves extending around the circumference of each roller. As shown in, the rollers rotate toward one another in the direction of the arrows. When elongated formis placed on and between the rollers, the rotation of the rollers pulls elongated formdownwardly such that sections are pinched between the rollers and into correspondingly aligned groove pairs to form smaller objectswithin each of the groove pairs, and the smaller objects fall from the rollers onto a trayas shown in.